E2 Visa & H1B 2 Green card question (marriage, uscis, L1)

[NickDarius]

My wife and I are considering a move to Florida in the future.

I have done a lot of reading on the various options we would have to obtain a permanent residency (green card).

Employment sponsorship (H1B)
Marriage
EB5 Visa

Obviously marrying an American is not an option, we are married to each other. H1B sponsorship could be an option, I am an IT Director and my wife has a Masters degree in Project Management. However my wife will not be actively looking for employment the first few years in the US.

My plan was to purchase or start a new business that my wife would operate with my help initially. My longterm goal would be to operate the business fulltime with my wife, but at first I would apply for an EAD visa and seek employment in my field to assure us a steady stream of income as we develop the business.

My question is this: would my wife, the sole proprietor of the business, be permitted to sponsor me for an H1B visa? Obviously the business and position would need to fall under my area of expertise. We would be starting or purchasing a technology company.

Can the company of an E2 visa holder, sponsor their spouse if all other criteria for the H1B position are legitimate and eventually sponsor for a permanent residency?

We are not looking to circumvent the system, but would like to find a path to permanent residency while investing and starting our own business. We have a 6 year old child and would not want to put her in a situation in 15 years that would leave her without an authorisation to remain in the US legally.

Obviously I would attempt to find employment with a company that can eventually sponsor me directly, but I want to have options available to me if I can't find such a company.

The EB5 visa is currently out of our budget, otherwise I would be looking at that route.

We'd have about $200-250 000 for investment purposes.

I know its a long post, but the US immigration process is long as well!

Thanks

[STT Resident]

Have you read the US immigration "bible"? You're looking at quite a long process but you'll find your options here:

Homepage | USCIS

[Threestep2]

E2 stipulates non-immigration intent, is based on profitability and creation of US employment
H1B - here a bit of info for the employer side http://www.dol.gov/compliance/guide/h1b.htm

Have you created a bizplan based on current market research? How do you plan to a) work a job in a US environment in IT and b) run the IT and business side of your own business at the same time?

[NickDarius]

We are at the very early stages of evaluating our options for a move. Only once we have clear path to permanent residence status is when we well develop and elaborate our business plans.

I have done a lot of reading, and will be meeting with an US immigration lawyer soon, however everything I read has led me to believe there is no path to permanent resident from an E2 visa, which was our first choice since.

Our ideal situation is purchasing or starting a business, as we have both come to the conclusion that we no longer want to be employees. My wife is currently self employeed and I have operated my own business before. I have now been working as Director of Technology for 15 years for the same company, but I have plans to start my own business, whether it be here or elsewhere.

Depending on the type of business we would be involved with, I would consider seeking outside employment if required, however my ideal situation is to operate our own business from the get go.

If I owned a company in Canada and I transfer myself on a L1 visa(intracompany visa) to a newly formed company in the US, would that company eventually be permitted to file an I-410 request for me or my spouse? I ask, because one of the business ideas we are toying with would involve our Canadian company purchasing and reselling service/products to Canadian customers from our US company. We would require active operations in both countries with staff in both countries.

Thanks guys. Trying to get as informed as possible before sitting down with a lawyer so I know what questions to ask.

[Threestep2]

How do you plan to finance this?

[NickDarius]

I as I mentioned earlier, we have around 200-250K to invest in a business. That does not take into accout 1-2 years of living expenses for our family if we move, which we have set aside as well.